


Stiles' Moving Castle

by mongrelmind



Category: Howl Series - Diana Wynne Jones, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-15
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-21 04:59:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/593704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mongrelmind/pseuds/mongrelmind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the land of Ingary, where magic is just another useful skill in the job hunting department, and warlocks, witches and enchanters are selling their services around every corner, a man of great magical skills can easily find himself in the middle of problematic situations.</p>
<p>Or maybe that was just Stiles.</p>
<p>(or: The weird Howl's moving castle fusion that no one asked for. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In which Derek and Stiles don't meet but they do make an effort.

Derek couldn’t remember his life before the curse.

That wasn’t quite true. He remembered walking on two legs, remembers looking at the world and seeing colours instead of smells, he remembered - and doesn’t that memory make his heart ache - what it felt to have opposable thumbs. He could never remember what he looked like, or what other people looked like. He knows he must have had a family, remembers Laura, but only as shadows, and he can’t remember himself with them. Not as a human.

He wondered, sometimes, if the reason he doesn’t remember is that it never really happened. His family could have been just a dream, just another spell Kate weaved to make him ache. It would be just like her to do something like that. The only thing he knows for certain to be real is her. He recalls with perfect clarity what it was like being with Kate and then losing her, having a home and then wandering through the Waste, trying to find something to eat and shelter from the storm.

A low rumbling sound made him snap out of his thoughts, and he turned his head towards the source of it. There was a shadow in the distance, black and ugly against the grey sky. It smelled of smoke, and magic, and reminded him of her, so he moved closer to it cautiously. The thing, the building, started moving away from him and he ran to catch up, fighting his exhaustion with the thought of possible warmth, and maybe even food.

The building stopped, just as he felt he was going to collapse and not make it, and he hit the wooden door with his side. It opened, unbroken, but he didn’t think about the implications of that. He walked inside the strange building and collapsed next to the blazing fireplace. The part of him that didn’t remember how to be human warned him, howled about danger and vulnerability but there was also a voice, a strange voice that told Derek to sleep and so, he did. Before he closed his eyes he noticed that the fire looked slightly like a face, but it only looked forty to sixty percent evil and he wasn’t alarmed by it.

“Holly shit, Lydia. When I said I wouldn’t mind some company now that everyone’s away I didn’t mean this!”

The voices seemed to grow louder with every passing second, but he paid them no mind, and slept.

*

In the land of Ingary, where magic is just another useful skill in the job hunting department, and warlocks, witches and enchanters are selling their services around every corner, a man of great magical skills can easily find himself in the middle of problematic situations.

Or maybe that was just Stiles.

“You are making a big deal out of nothing,” said Lydia from the fireplace. Her voice was sharp and she looked irritated, although, for reasons unfathomable to the wizard, her expression seemed to soften every time she looked at the big, black wolf that was sleeping in front of her. Stiles could swear that she was burning brighter and warmer than she usually did, just to make the creature more comfortable. That annoyed him even more. 

Her actiong just proved that his being here was a spectacularly bad idea. Lydia never brought in strays. If you don't count Scott that is, but Scott had left ages ago and Stiles had agreed they let him help running the shops in Porthaven and Kingsbury. And Allison. She was the last person that Lydia had brought in and was willing to care for, and they both knew how well _that_ turned out. Not that Allison had been a bad addition to their little dysfunctional household, but it was because of her that he met Kate and this whole lone wizard travelling in a moving castle routine started. And now Lydia wanted to look after this wolfman that had obviously been cursed by none other than Kate herself.

Really, if Stiles didn’t know her better he’d think that the fire demon was trying to irritate the Witch on purpose.

“He’s cursed,” he told her just in case being so close to smoke all the time had somehow damaged her senses. “By the Witch of the Waste. Who I have been trying to avoid for years and you know that! He is also a huge scary animal. With teeth. Lots of teeth.”

The sizzle of the flames sounded like a cackle and he glareed at the strawberry blond fire. The green flickering flames that are Lydia’s eyes were teasing.

“Are you scared, mighty wizard Stiles? " she laughed pulling a log closer and stretching over it. "Of a little pup?”

He looked down at the sleeping wolf and regreted all of his life choices. Starting with catching that star. 

"I'll bring back a couple of chickens to feed him, when he's up," he said. "Just make sure we stay under her radar, okay?"

"Have I _ever_ let you down?" 

The wolf turned in his sleep, moving closer to the fireplace. Stiles walked out to the busy streets of Kingsbury, hanged the 'Closed' sign on his door, and tried to remember whether wolves could eat dog food. 


	2. In which Lydia is herself although sometimes Stiles doesn't know who that is and when you share a heart with someone arguments are bound to occur

There would always be things that she wouldn’t tell him.

_You need to tell me the truth Lydia, I need to be able to trust you!_ She remembered Stiles yelling the last time he caught her lying. Or better, not lying, but simply keeping some information for herself. It wasn’t the first time, nor the last. But she was more careful from then on.  
 _You can. I know all you know, you know all I know, this is how our contract works!_ She had spat back, feeling the heart that was resting among the flames that are her body clenching painfully.  
She was lying, of course she was. And she was always desperately hoping that Stiles knew this, that he understood how, sometimes, when it was about any other of her kind, and especially about Peter, there really was nothing else she could do.

She hoped he knew and was appropriately prepared for whatever they'd have to face in the future.

_Peter_ , she thought. _It was always going to be about Peter._

Sometimes she couldn’t answer his questions because she didn’t know. This was the first time she's had a heart after all and the weight of it was still strange and unfamiliar even after all they've been through together, Stiles and she.

Derek's arrival filled Stiles with questions, and she couldn’t answer any of them.

Why had she taken him in, had she not known that it was Kate who cursed him, why did she go through all the trouble of keeping him warm when even Allison had to shiver in her wet clothes for hours before Lydia decided that she was worth a little bit of her warmth?

When will he wake up?

Then there were also the things that Stiles didn’t notice. Curses coming full circle, prophecies fulfilled, a jump in the pulse that he has long forgotten about. She wondered if she should tell him but decided against it.

After all, it was just a human organ, that lump that she had stolen from his chest. If it took a leap every now and then, if it missed a beat sometimes, like when Derek turned in his sleep and moved closer to the fireplace, looking somehow human despite his current shape, then who was she to decide that it had to mean something more than that the organ is flawed, imperfect?

It beat faster when Derek finally opened his eyes, and looked at her, answering all of her questions.

She didn’t tell Stiles what she found out with that look.

_He’s here to either save, or wreck us, or both._

and

_Your heart won’t keep us alive for much longer, not if he steals it away from us._

She hopes that he would figure everything out on his own before it’s too late.

*

Derek woke up warm, well rested, and on his way to being furious. There was a hand scratching the top of his head, a stranger’s hand whose smell he couldn’t recognize and so he snarled at it, snapping his teeth.

“Oh my God! Easy there sourwolf! I’m a friend,” said the stranger pulling his hand away and taking a small step back. 

Derek looked at the man and he tried to step closer to him again, reaching out to stroke his fur. Derek stepped back, arching his body, baring his teeth, ready to leap and tear his throat out.

The man smelled like candle wax, ink, and a little like a forest fire. He thought of Kate again, who had always smelled of smoke and silver and had kissed him and then burned down his house and family with a flick of her wrist and a smile. Kate who had taken him away and turned him into a wolf and then abandoned him in the Waste. He looked up at the man, expecting to find similarities, expecting to find something of the Witch in him. 

The wizard in front of him had her eyes. Beautiful and intelligent but glassy, empty, as if there’s nothing but a brain and magic behind them. No warmth. Except, of course, for the moments she had spent watching his house burn down. The fire was blazing in her eyes then.

He snarled again and the wizard finally took a step back.

“Stiles. will you stop acting like an idiot?” Derek turned to look towards the new voice, at the fire. 

Two bright green flames seemed to focus on him, and the fire was suddenly a face, with a mouth and eyes and even a small nose. It, or better, she, since it sounded female, smiled at him, mouth white hot.

“I’m Lydia,” said the fire demon slowly. “I let you in here. I slave under Stiles, although god knows why and he is very sorry for startling you.” 

At this she turned and glared at the wizard. 

“Teeth!” Stiles hissed as if that was enough explanation and she lashed out at him with a fiery hand showering him with ashes.

Stiles started yelling at her then and she was yelling back, spitting out sparks furiously and they were talking too fast for Derek to make out anything. He wasn’t even sure he understood the language they used. Their shrill voices hurt his ears so he ran to the door and outside of the castle. Better to brave the weather of the waste than remain trapped in a small space with a wizard and a demon.

He felt the sand under his feet and let the quiet of the landscape calm him. This was his territory, to guard and to live in, where there were no strange smells here, no shouts, nothing that could hurt him. In fact, there was nothing there at all, save from the tall strange castle, but that would leave, and he’d be alone again.

The lone wolf never survives, someone had told him once and he wanted to believe it had been Laura but he knew he was wrong.

Whoever it was, there was no reason for him to listen. Being alone had worked for him so far.

He sat outside as the castle walked slowly away, and reminded himself that he never before minded the cold, or the loneliness.


	3. In which Derek is retrieved without a lot of fuss

Stiles stared at the door after Derek ran out, argument forgotten. Lydia waited, ready to push him after him as soon as he gave her an opening.

“We did nothing to help him didn’t we?” he asked, in his usual, detached way. He cared, he and Lydia both knew that, but he cared the same way he cared about figuring out a spell, or solving a problem. It wasn't about Derek or what he was going through, it was about leaving the problem unsolved, failing to prove one more time that they could be greater than Kate and her demon.

“ _You_ did nothing. _I_ took him in and saved him from pneumonia.” Lydia said raising a fiery eyebrow and crossing her arms over a log.

Stiles glared at her.

She mentally counted backwards from five. 

“Fine!" the wizard yelled throwing his arms on the air. "But if he bites me and I get rabies and can’t heal myself and die in horrible pain and general anguish because of Kate's chew toy I am totally going to blame you. ”

She grinned. 

“I’ll make sure to keep you alive just go and bring him back!”

He looked at her, silently. She motioned at him to leave and he did, wrapping his red cloak around him like an act of defiance against all fairy tale tropes.

When he reached the door, he stopped again, hand hovering over the handle with the needle pointing to the red blob of paint over it. Red for the waste.

“Is he going to be able to help us?”

Lydia smiled.

“Just trust me, Stiles.”

And the fool did, as always.

When the door had shut behind him she closed her eyes and breathed. There was a voice coming from under the floorboards on which Derek had slept but it wasn't a human voice and Lydia might be the only one who could hear it. She knew that only she had noticed the rainwater sliding off Derek’s skin in a spiral, and the faint mark it had left on their floor.

“You did well, dear heart”, said Peter.

She shivered and the wind of the waste blowing through the door sounded like Kate Argent’s laugh.

*

Stiles mentally cursed Lydia to all the Hells of the Related Realms and back as he stepped out in the Waste. It was raining, of course it was, it was always raining ever since Jackson tried to experiment on the barren landscape and ended up both getting lost and possibly damaging the ecosystem beyond repair.

Some Royal Wizard he was.

Stiles pulled his hood over his head and looked around for the wolf.

“Wolf!” he called out, wishing he had a name to use, preferably something short and fit for a dog.

Dog like creature anyway. Canine.

“Wolf come back here!”

He saw a big lump of grey in the distance and tried to catch up with it. The wolf wasn’t running but Stiles was, so he reached the creature quickly and fell to step next to him with a hand tangled in his fur. The wolf didn't bite his hand off. Stiles thought they must be bonding.

“You should probably come back to the castle you know. It’s warm and dry and Lydia might even let us cook today although I am willing to bet that you’d prefer to just eat your steak raw, wouldn’t you?”

The wolf didn't answer, but he didn't try to bite Stiles either, so the wizard knew they’re making progress.

He stayed silent for a couple of seconds, trying to get some order out of his mind, trying to focus on something to say, something that would hold this creature back.

“If you come back,” he saed, “Lydia and I are going to do our best to lift yous curse. I have always loved a puzzle and it’s so much more exciting when a spell is layered and complicated like your is! What do you say?”

The wolf stoped and looked at him, eyes blue, and clear, and sharp. Stiles fought down the urge to scratch behind his ears, even though his fur was soaked and glistening and looked incredibly soft.

He started talking about the wolf’s curse, asked questions that he couldn’t possibly get answers to even if his conversational partner was able to do more than growl and snap his teeth at him and he walked them back to the castle with quick steps, ignoring the pouring rain.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is a nothing-much-happens chapter i know but there IS plot on the way so if you are still reading this despair not!
> 
> (AND MERRY CHRISTMAS)


	4. In which we learn of a boy, and a star.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Small upload I know, but I wanted Stiles and Lydia's story to have a chapter on its own...  
> I hope you enjoy it!  
> Happy new year!

The next day, Derek woke up to find that Stiles had apparently forgotten his existence.

“He gets like that, sometimes,” Lydia said when he sat by the fireplace and looked at her, tilting his head. He liked sitting with Lydia and hear her talk, answer his questions as if she could read his thoughts. He wondered if she actually could. “It’s just his way of coping when he’s busy and the world is a little too much. Try to avoid his legs.”

The wizard stormed around the castle, pausing only to ask Lydia a question or two. He didn’t eat, his clothes were a mess and he kept muttering under his breath and taking notes on pieces of paper and walls and any surface available. Derek tried not to look at him. There was a gleam in his glassy eyes and he looked almost like he was drunk, his heart beating like crazy in Derek’s ears. That’s when he noticed for the first time, really noticed and not just suspected, and he turned to look at Lydia, at the dark clump of flesh inside her. Derek moved away from the fireplace quickly, to the corner of the room and wondered why it was that he always ended up in the company of heartless magic users.

Lydia talked to him still, more urgently now that she saw he knew and she’s different than Peter was, less in control, more desperate, so he looked at her and listened. Stiles moved like a fly around them and paid them no mind.

“Once”, she told him burning softly like a candle, “there was a young boy and he had a good, strong heart. He did”, she added with a bitter smile, “trust me. I know that from experience”, she looked away from him and continued speaking, her flames illustrating her world like a fairytale until the shapes of them all had been burned on Derek’s mind. 

“The boy had been training with a wizard named Deaton, back in the strange country that he’d come from, Beacon Hills but he was too good for that world, too strong for its decaying magic and the dead skies, so his teacher gave him a Babylon Candle and taught him one of the old spells,” Lydia smiled. “ It only took two steps and the boy was in Ingary.”

The room looked darker than it should, given the time of the day but Derek didn’t notice, watching the dancing flames shaping themselves around Lydia’s words, showing him and telling him everything about that strange man whose house he'd ended up sharing. Lydia talked briefly about the years the boy, Stiles had spent studying magic in Ingary, perfecting his art, anxious to get to the end of the story. That moment came and suddenly, Lydia’s flames burned brighter, and hotter, and whiter, and the air smelled of night and stars and soft grass and the cold world of the stars.

“Stiles caught a falling star, because he thought he was in love with a girl named Lydia,” whispered the fire-demon and Derek saw strawberry blond hair, green eyes, and rosy skin. “She was beautiful, because she burned bright and shone even in human guise and she was intelligent because she was older than many worlds. But stars are often fools at the matters of the heart and that star had spent far too much time playing at being a human. He found out how to bind himself to one of its kind and walked out on the night of the star dance and..." she paused. Derek didn't know whether stars could cry, or demons, but Lydia didn't cry. She shook herself and went on, her voice hard and unforgiving. "He caught it and he held it in his cold human hands that were death to a flame and it didn’t want to die so it offered him a bargain. He agreed, foolish that he was, still thinking that what he was feeling was love, still thinking that what he believed he loved was just a girl.”

The room turned light again and Lydia curled to herself, around Stiles’ beating heart. 

“He tries to stay human. Not all of them do. But of course you must know that.”

Derek nodded. Kate had a human smile and a human smell and her eyes were glass, and she was just like Stiles’ in all the ways but those that matter.

“We want you to protect us.”

He nodded again although he knew what she was, what they both were, knew that he couldn't trust them. No matter how human her eyes looked. Peter looked human as he whispered in Kate’s ear. And Kate, she looked human as she set the fire and turned his body into a mess of fur and claws and teeth.

Lydia smiled at him and shook herself with a shower of red and orange sparks.

“Our reward will come when the moon is at its peak,” she said and turned her attention to Stiles, who chose this moment to barge in the room with a stream of equations and questions to ask her.


	5. In which Derek walks on two legs

On the day of the full moon Lydia stopped the castle on the hill near Market Chirping, and the shops in Kingsbury and Porthaven stayed closed for the entire day. Stiles spent his time outside doing complicated weather spells to ensure a cloudless sky during the night. It’s tough to keep the balance but Stiles never worried, and the spells changed the world a little at a time. Clouds moved away from Market Chirping and into the Waste, pouring rain over the sand and stone. A lizard looked at the sky and then ran and hid under a warm, flat stone. The underground stirred.

Lydia was shouting instructions and making calculations because although he was always powerful, Stiles could never manage mathematics and weather spells were mostly just that. Cold strategy and logic and a knack for equations. He would thank his lucky star for her presence but he never was such a big fan of cold, bitter, dramatic irony.

The sun had finally set and Stiles gave up all pretense of keeping track of the weather. The moon was rising behind the mountains and no cloud could be seen on the sky. He opened the door of the castle, so that Lydia would be able to catch a glance at what would happen and then moved back next to the Wolf. He was sitting within the circle of ash that Stiles had made, out of Birch and Rowan and Apple and he was looking at the stars. Stiles kept his head down.

“We’re interested in a different celestial body tonight wolfman.”

He walked back inside, to Lydia, and she looked at him burning bright red and exhausted. She smiled, when he approached her, which was unusual and let him cup his hands around her, which was downright rare.

“I’m exhausted,” she said and her voice was low and sad.

“So am I,” Stiles said. “Allison will be back soon, and things will be better with her here.”

“We won’t have to talk to each other so much, you mean.”  
She smiled, then and her eyes were soft but her lips cruel and she managed to cut through his every defense again anyway.

“Don’t say that, I love you,” he insisted holding her close to him even as his clothes charred and his hands started to blister.

“Stiles. I appreciate the sentiment but you can’t. Now go out there, the moon is rising and I don’t want to miss the show.”

He frowned but left, healing his scalded hands and telling himself it was because he knew there was no way to talk Lydia out of that mood.

The truth was that with the moon rising and the wolf howling Stiles just didn’t care enough to stay and talk, didn’t even feel like making himself try. Instead, he stared at the circle as the ash shone blue and silver and made a cage around the creature, blocking his way out.

He stretched out his hand and started talking, reciting the breaking spells with a cold voice. Lydia was burning blue and white, a force of pure ancient energy behind him and he could feel her there, on his chest and in his mind, powerful and demanding, draining him of all that he was and filling him up with herself. The wolf’s howl died out as their voices rose in volume and the animal fell writhing on the floor, the air, filled with the sickening sounds of bones rearranging. Slowly, he stood, fur fading away to reveal smooth, human skin. His hands were clenching and unclenching continuously and he stared down at them like that small movement itself was all he ever wanted from humanity. He was not smiling, Stiles noticed. He didn’t laugh, he didn’t smile, he didn’t wag the tail he no longer had. 

He walked closer to the man, holding out his cloak and trying to get a good look at him.

The wolf reached out and took it, wrapping it around his shoulders and then lifted his head to look at Stiles.

His eyes burned blue and his fangs looked just as sharp as when his was a wolf. Slowly his face smoothed out into a completely human one. Stiles did his best not to stare, and turned his back on him quickly, walking inside.

“So, what’s your name then?” he asked.

*

“Derek,” he told the wizard. His voice startled him and his face felt strange, unfamiliar. He opened and closed his mouth a few more times, pressed his tongue over his blunt, human teeth. He looked up at the moon and shivered under the cloak. “Derek Hale.”

Derek looked at Stiles, who turned back to look at him faster than he thought possible of humans to move. He waited for the questions. About the witch and his family, and whatever it was that had startled the wizard so much, but they never came. Instead, Stiles visibly forced himself to relax and walked into the castle.

“Come inside, I have some clothes that should fit you. Probably. You’re more... muscle-y than I had thought. Come on in.”

Derek looked at him, listened to the silence of his missing heartbeat and then, finally, leaned his head on the crook of his neck and inhaled. He thought absent mindedly that this probably wasn’t how humans acted around other humans but he didn’t much care. He could still feel the wolf inside him, and he was sure that human was not a good word to describe himself.

Stiles nearly jumped out of his skin. His hands moved around like he didn’t know the best way to push Derek away. Derek held him in place and tried to cling to the only thing that didn’t seem different in this strange new shape. Stiles still smelled the same, burningwoodcandlesmagicink, and when Derek looks at his eyes they were the same as well. Glassy and intelligent and empty. The addition of color didn’t hide what the wizard is, although amber gives an illusion of warmth. 

Derek wondered whether that excitement, that fake warmth was enough to fool the humans. Derek wondered if the wizard even had heart enough to care. He pulled away from the man and stepped inside, towards the sound of Stiles’ beating heart and the cackling of Lydia’s flames on the logs.

Stiles looked at his retreating form for a moment, and then followed him inside.


	6. Which does involve some cleaning

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> guys thank you for all your brilliant comments, I am glad you are enjoying this (even though i sometimes post tiny chapters like this one)   
> I love you all!

Derek sat on the floor in front of Lydia, wrapped inside the cloak. Stiles sat on the chair and watched them as they watched each other, waiting for one of the two to speak. They didn’t, so he took this as a sign to take over the conversation. Derek wouldn’t be capable of speech forever.

Stiles, as Derek found out quickly, had a habit of sometimes talking too fast, and a little bit too much, and he grew tired of trying to answer all of his questions. Especially since he knew the answers to so little of them. Stiles kept asking and asking and Derek got progressively more impatient and annoyed with the young boy, so he did what he would have done as a wolf, and laid down on the rug, closing his eyes.

“Oi, Derek!” Stiles nearly shouted into his ear.

Derek growled, baring his teeth and Stiles stopped, like he was just realising that Derek could rip his throat out with his teeth if he wished, magic or no magic. 

“My past does not concern you,” he said, his words sharp and short and angry like a bark. Derek didn’t trust him, not yet, he had learned the hard way not to trust the heartless people no matter how pretty or kind or innocent they looked.

“You two are like babies,” said the fire demon. “Derek, get dressed. There are clothes for you on Stiles’ chair and I need another log and someone to clean the ashes off fireplace and maybe tidy a little because Stiles is the messiest creature on earth and not being able to see the table gives me a headache.”

Derek pushed a log towards the fire and got up, glad for the escape she provided. He took the clothes that Stiles had put aside and dropped the cloak to the ground. He noticed that Stiles was staring a little, and ignored it. People often stared, that never meant anything, except from one time, when he had found out that it meant that his house would burn. He dressed himself quickly and got to work, before Stiles attempted to try and start a conversation with him again. He swept the floor and tried to tidy up the place as much as one person could. Then, never stopping, he cleaned the fireplace, swept the ashes and made sure there was a stash of logs where the demon could easily reach them. Stiles’ contribution to the whole thing was trailing behind Derek, in an attempt to protect his precious spells.

“Do you mind?” Derek asked, the fourth time that Stiles managed to knock something over with his elbow or his knee or his jawline or any other gangly bone on his body just as Derek had finished tidying up.

Stiles huffed and complained but he didn’t move, to Derek’s annoyance. When the inevitable finally happened and he accidentally hit Derek with his shoulder, Derek turned to look at him and pinned the wizard to the wall, growling.

Lydia gasped, heart racing, but Stiles just stared at him, and lifted his hands to move Derek’s arms away calmly. 

“I am not afraid of you, or your Big Bad Wolf act, you know?” said Stiles and Derek didn’t know if it was a lie, couldn’t listen for a racing pulse. He didn’t look like he was afraid, but Lydia was, and she had the wizard’s heart... 

Stiles slipped away, fixing Derek’s collar with a smug smile and Derek only glared, keeping his hands to himself and his mouth shut.

“Besides,” Stiles said as he sat on his chair next to the fireplace. “I think I need your help and I think, when you hear me out, you’ll want to help me too.”


	7. In which Lydia is being treacherous again bless her stolen heart and the plot seems to thicken?

They told Derek that his sister was still alive. It was probably a lie, but sometimes lies were needed, Stiles had said to her and she agreed. Sometimes he sounded just like Peter. They told him Laura had lived and maybe it was true, maybe she really was one of the patchwork people that Kate and Peter had created, although it was very unlikely. They knew that Jackson was one of them, caught while he was in the Waste, working for the King. Lydia wanted to find and fix him, make him whole again and send him on his way, until she’s free and not carrying someone else’s heart inside her. They also knew that the man they were looking for, Isaac, was one of them as well.

The boy who could will life into things. The boy with the healing hands.

Stiles didn’t know all about him, but Lydia had told him that Kate and Peter were after him, she had told him that Isaac wasn’t of Ingary. From the moment that Stiles heard that he was from his own world there was no stopping him. A hunt had started and he was the prize, although one of the people after him, or two, now with Derek in the mix, had no idea what they were really looking for. Lydia prefered things that way. Tidy and neat. Away from Derek’s clumsy two legged walk, away from Stiles’ ever flailing limbs. 

She spent her days watching them circle each other, wolf and man, watched Derek struggle to keep his human form for longer and failing, turning back to wolf as soon as the full moon days were done. Kate casted strong spells, and she had been meticulous and cunning enough to see all possible loopholes and close them, but she missed one vital piece of information. 

Peter wanted her dead. And for that to happen, Derek needed to stay alive. Human. There was a part he would have to play in the hunt, although Peter wouldn’t tell her what he had seen. So he whispered as the world slept, talked to her in the language of stars that made everything into sparks and belief and power, and she learned the secrets that nobody else knew. 

_She wanted to turn him into one of the moon children that lived in the old world. She failed. You won't._

He didn’t give explanations but Lydia never needed them. Derek was unfinished, trapped into his wolf shape while he should be able to flow between the two. Lydia could work with this idea. She could trick Stiles into believing it had been his. 

_The spell wants to be completed. You just need to nudge it in the right direction. Work harder._

She had stopped sleeping. The fire always burned and Derek had taken to sleeping upstairs, curled outside Stiles’ room like a guard dog, where her light wouldn’t disturb him. She worked. She moved the house, she operated the doors, she warmed the water. She hoped they would not notice anything until she had all the answers she needed. She worked.

*  
The castle moved through the Waste, inching closer to the edge, with its cities and villages. Derek tried to feel bad about it, tried to remember that he was nothing but a dangerous beast, that Kate had sent him away in the wild to stop him from hurting innocent people. It didn’t work. He had spent the last weeks living with people, even if they weren’t exactly normal. He had walked down the streets of Kingsbury and Porthave with Stiles, he had even let a kid approach him when his mother had come in to ask for a spell from “The Great Magician Pendragon”. Kate’s words felt empty for the first time, and powerless.

“Come on, Wolfman,” Stiles told him when they reached the hill over Market Chirping. 

He bared his teeth, but Stiles only laughed. 

“Come on, I said. We’re visiting an old hat shop today.”

He followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, Isaac is a thing now!  
> And terribly popular with the dangerous-enchanters-and-their-demons group of the population?  
> Also I feel bad for Stiles, poor thing. Nobody tells him shit.  
> Anyway I would like to thank you all for reading this and for all your lovely comments I really spent an unhealthy amount of time keysmashing over how beautiful all of you are!


	8. In which we meet Allison and Scott

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so terribly sorry for the late (LATE) update... It's exam period and the fact that I hate my university isn't helping my studying and as you can guess I am studying for and then failing a lot of things.  
> BUT, chapter is here  
> Allison is a POV character because I love her and also wasn't sure how to write Scott...  
> ANYWAY THE GANG IS COMING TOGETHER  
> i am excite  
> i hope you enjoy the chapter and don't hate me too much over my irregular updates...  
> If you feel the need to you can come yell at me at my tumblr: theswordintheparsnip.tumblr.com

The shop that Scott and Allison owned was old and had a perpetually dusty look no matter how many times a year they closed down for a “spring cleaning”. (Stiles had his doubts about what they actually did on these days.) The actual shop operated on the ground floor, leaving the top floor free for Scott to work on making the new hats, and for the couple to live in when the shop was actually closed for the day. Stiles new both shop and house like the back of his hand, had slept on the room that was always reserved for him, had made fun of Scott’s little working booth more times than he could count. It was still not home, not really, Stiles could have no home away from Lydia, but it was a safe place. And Allison was always useful to talk to.

Stiles stopped about a block away and checked the street for any signs that the McCall & Argent hat shop was entertaining guests. Namely, Allison’s father, the Witch’s brother. He cast a quick tracing spell, holding Derek next to him. When he made sure that the street was clear he walked to the shop, and banged the door open.

“Scott!” he yelled at the top of his voice, grinning at Allison who was sitting behind the counter. “Leave the ugly cherries out of the hat and come down to greet your friend properly!”

There was a crash and a second later Scott came barreling down the stairs and tackled Stiles to the ground, laughing. Allison walked and stood over them, with her arms crossed and her boot tapping her floor. Stiles pushed Scott off and sat up, smiling at her. She helped him up and gave him a quick hug.  
“It’s good to see you. It’s been far too long this time.” 

Stiles nodded and turned to Derek, who was sitting just outside the door, watching the street.

“Come inside, Wolfman, we’re going upstairs.”

Derek looked at them and walked inside the room cautiously, staying away from Allison. Scott sat up and looked at the wolf and then up to Stiles, raising an eyebrow.

“Please tell me it that’s a really strange dog?”

Stiles shook his head. 

“Right”, Scott got up and closed the door, latching it shut and turning the sign. “Let’s go upstairs and you can tell us everything.”

“It’s quite a long story Scott and the vocabulary can be difficult, are you sure you don’t want the summary?” Stiles called back as he walked upstairs, Derek at his heels. 

*  
Allison was glad to see Stiles, of course she was. The wizard didn’t visit them often and it was hard to contact him when he changed name every second week and his real house kept travelling around the country. But she wasn’t Scott, blinded by countless years of friendship and unable to recognize his faults. 

Stiles was a cold man and selfish, he had been so for as long as she knew him.

Scott was unable to see it, but if Stiles had taken time out of his precious schedule to visit them, then he must need something. And need it badly.

She listen to his story about how they came across Derek in the waste, what had been done to him by Kate, the heartbreaking drama of his family. She could see Stiles’ eyes gleaming with excitement as he weaved the story together, each word chosen carefully to inspire sympathy. He was convincing. In another life he would probably be truly moved by a stranger’s curse, he’d have moved the earths and heavens of all twelve realms if it meant saving a person in need. 

But Allison was an Argent and she would not be fooled by flailing limbs and a strong voice. In this world Stiles only cared for the adventure, for a break in his routine, and to prove himself grander than Kate. 

She crossed her arms and leaned back on the wall. 

“That’s all very well, Stiles. But what can we do about him? Neither Scott nor I have any magical talent as you very well know,” she said, looking at him.

He smiled at her and he looked so much like a young boy that she felt a need to hug him, shelter him from the big bad world. She checked his clothes for woven spells before she allowed herself to accept the emotion as her own. 

Growing up with Kate had made acts like that a habit. Always second guess. Always assume your brain is lying to you.

Scott leaned forward in his chair looking at Stiles.

“Whatever it is we will help you,” he said, and Allison knew he was honest. 

Her kind hearted fool.

“You have no magic that’s true but your family has a talent for locating people of magical abilities Allison. I will need your help to find Isaac… And Scott, how long has it been since we went to an adventure? It will be like old times! So, are you coming?”

She could see Scott agreeing even before Stiles finished speaking. 

There really was no point in trying to get out of it anymore. She sighed and smiled at the two men, giggling together over a funny memory of their “adventures”, probably about Scott sitting on a hedgehog, or Stiles getting his eyebrows burnt off trying to catch a falling star.

She moved to her room and started packing. It had been too long since she last went hunting, but she was ready. 

Whether or not the world was.

“SCOTT,” she called out, “STOP MESSING AROUND AND COME PACK YOUR BAGS. I REFUSE TO DO IT FOR YOU.”

**Author's Note:**

> As you can see I've taken some liberties with the book (and the movie for that matter), but I hope that doesn't drive you away.
> 
> I originally started posting this story on my tumblr and it's going to continue being updated there although the version i'll post here will be the polished and more cleaned up one. 
> 
> (Still unbeta-ed so if you're noticing mistakes please correct me. English is not my first language and I do tend to mix up my tenses)


End file.
